Abstract
Surfactant driven "Marangoni" flows can be used to cause material transport along interfaces. One potential use of this is to cause post deposition transport of aerosolized drug used to treat lung diseases such as cystic fibrosis. The work in this thesis explores the underlying science of such a treatment by studying the transport properties in three different ways. First, I explore the ability of the lung’s natural surfactants (lipids) to transport drug across a mucus-like subphase. This work shows that lipid can drive such spreading and can even do so in low surface tension environments, such as the lung. Second, I develop an apparatus to study the effects of subphase height and surfactant amount on spreading and non-surface active material transport. The effects on flow behavior are mapped into an operating diagram and other transport properties are tracked and related to three distinct flow regimes. Lastly, I simulate the interactions of two spreading disks of surfactant to bring research closer to the case of aerosol deposition where multiple sources of Marangoni stress are present. From this work, I explore the effects of two surfactant sources on flow behavior. This thesis provides powerful insights into surfactant driven drug delivery and offers several future research directions which will advance the field.
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